BR 

1851 



4& 



i 



lv/\ 

LETTER 

TO 

CARDINAL WISEMAN, 

IN ANSWER TO HIS 

" REMARKS ON LADY MORGAN'S STATEMENTS 
REGARDING ST. PETER'S CHAIR." 

BY 

SYDNEY LADY MORGAN, 



" Malevolentiae hominum in me si potens occurres ; si non poteris hoc te consolabere 
quod me de statu meo nullis contumeliis deterrere possunt." — {Brutus Ciceroni.') Ciceron. 
ad Familiares, lib. xi., ep. 11. 

" Render an account of tlie origin of your chair; since you claim to be the Holy 
Church, and even say that you have a portion in the City of Rome. But if you ask 
Macrobius where he sits in that city, will he be able to reply, in the chair of St. Peter? 
I doubt if he even knows it by sight; and to its Church he does not approach." — 
St. Optatus Milevitanus, lib. ii., adv. Parmenion. 



THIRD EDITION, WITH A POSTSCRIPT. 



LONDON : 

CHARLES WESTERTON, 20, ST. GEORGE'S PLACE, 

HYDE PARK CORNER. 

1851. 

Price One Shilling. 



LETTER 



TO 

Nicholas, by the Divine Mercy, of the Holy Roman 
Church, by the title of St. Pudentiana, Cardinal 
Priest, Archbishop of Westminster, and Adminis- 
trator Apostolic of the Diocese of Southwark." 



My Lord Cardinal, 

A letter addressed recently to the Morning 
Chronicle, headed " Lady Morgan and Cardinal Wise- 
man/' has drawn my attention to an early publica- 
tion of your Eminence, which, more important in its 
object than in its subject, is now doubtless destined, 
like all your Eminence ever has written, or may write, 
to see the light ; coming forth, as you now do, the 
foreground figure of a great epoch. The title of your 
Eminence's work is "Remarks on Lady Morgan's 
Statements regarding St. Peter's Chair, preserved in 
the Vatican Basilic." It is in bulk a brochure, in 
spirit a Bull. The tendency of your Eminence's 
Remarks was to place my book called " Italy " on the 

B 



2 



Index Expur gat onus of the Holy Office of Rome,— 
in this you succeeded ; and to banish the Author of 
that work from the happy social position which she 
has always occupied, — in this you failed. For the 
awful Vade in pace! of the Church has now no 
longer the power to hurl its victims into the darkness 
of social oblivion ; nor can even a Papal excommuni- 
cation close the doors of European salons, against 
those whose moral consideration or intellectual at- 
tainments have brought them within the circles of 
distinguished society. My work on Italy was written 
and published under the wise and liberal pontificate 
of Pope Pius VII. ; to whom I had the honour of 
presentation ; and to whose eminently gifted and * 
accomplished Secretary of State, Cardinal Gonsalvi, 
I was indebted for many kind attentions and serious 
obligations. Among others, that of rescuing my 
husband's books from a seizure made by the Holy 
Office ; though the volumes had been purchased, at 
considerable expense, from Roman booksellers and 
celebrated antiquarians. 

I know not what rank your Eminence then held 
in that Church, of which you are now so brilliant an 
illustration, on your way to ' e the all-hail hereafter" 
You may have, then, been lisping in numbers to the 
" Latian echoes," 

" A youth to fortune and to fame unknown," 

merged perchance in those groups of stalwart Chierici 
(or 'prentice-priests) who then swarmed in Rome, 
fresh from the banks of the Shannon or the Boyne, 



3 



and who were wont, and u ever of an afternoon" to 
walk the cloisters, as medical students walk the hos- 
pitals, waiting for — a call ! or as Puseyite curates, 

" In maiden meditation, fancy free," 

pace the aristocratic pavements of Belgravia, waiting 
for — a convert ! 

I am also ignorant, my Lord Cardinal, at what 
epoch you first published your " Remarks on Lady 
Morgan's Statements," &c. I take it for granted, it 
was not under the tolerant reign of Pope Pius VII. 
But, as an edition of your " Remarks," now lying 
before me, (the first copy I have ever seen,) is dated 
1833, I suppose it must have been brought out in 
the stern pontificate of Leo XII., who was thus 
characterized by the Pasquin of the day, in allusion 
to his vigorous but ineffectual rescripts,— 

" Non e Pio, non e Clemente, 
Ma vecchio Leone senza dente." 

Your Eminence's own account of the publication, 
given in a short preface, is, that — "it was first pub- 
lished in an English periodical, then translated into 
Italian for the Giornale Arcadico," (and never was an 
effusion less arcadian.) " Rome/' you add, " is the 
place where its subject must naturally excite most 
interest ; and it is to English readers, who have pro- 
bably heard or read Lady Morgan's Statement, that a 
confutation of it should be principally addressed." It 
is a singular fact, that I never saw this able attack 
of your Eminence on my work until lately ; and so 
the thunders of the Vatican rolled over me innoxious. 

b 2 



4 



I heard, indeed, that a very learned diatribe had been 
written against my description of St. Peter's chair ; 
but I carelessly dismissed the subject with the ob- 
servation of a French wit, — 

" Que les gens d'esprit sont betes." 

But times have changed ; and the Rector of an 
English or Irish Roman College in 1833 has become, 
in 1850, "Nicholas, by the Divine Mercy, of the Holy 
Roman Church, by the title of St. Pudentiana, Car- 
dinal Priest, Archbishop of Westminster, and Admi- 
nistrator Apostolic of the Diocese of Southwark." It 
is possible, that among your Eminence's Caudatorii 
(or trainbearers) there may be some one literary and 
clerical genius fired with the ambition to edite your 
works, when I shall be no longer living to defend 
mine, and who may hand me down to posterity (my 
only chance) marked with the cachet of your Emi- 
nence's reprobation. Self-defence is the first law of 
nature, common to all created things 

" That live and move, and have a being ; 99 

and I am sure your Eminence will approve as a man, 
as a gentleman, and as a Christian, even of a woman 
availing herself of the great immunity, and bringing 
her poor reasoning instincts to bear upon an attack 
made against her by so potent and illustrious an 
opponent, who, having written under a false impres- 
sion, will be happy to acknowledge his mistake, and, 
like the recording angel of other accusations, " drop 
a tear upon the page, and blot it out for ever ! " 



5 



And now, my Lord, to the charge. You open your 
" Remarks " thus : — " Lady Morgan was originally 
known to the public as a writer of romance. So long 
as she persevered in that character, she had a right 
to invent amusing tales to gratify the curiosity of her 
readers : yet even the regions of fiction are subject to 
the great laws of justice and good faith ; nor can 
that writer hope for indulgence, who, under the dis- 
guise of a fabulous narrative, conceals an attack upon 
the reputation and character of others." 

My Lord, I agree to every point of your observa- 
tion ; but I beg to pause here. My Romances were 
not, as you assert, u invented merely to amuse and 
gratify the curiosity of my readers." They were 
written for and in the great cause of Catholic Eman- 
cipation — the theme and inspiration of my early 
authorship, and the conviction of my after-life. The 
titles of these books were Irish and Catholic. " The 
Wild Irish Girl," "O'Donnel," " Florence Macarthy," 
" The O'Briens and the O'Flahertys," &c., — these 
were not names, as we say in Ireland, "to open a 
Church Pew with." 

My heroes were Irish Patriots ; my models of pas- 
toral piety were Irish Priests. I was justified in the 
selection : for the celebrated Father Arthur O'Leary, 
the Sidney Smith of his Church and country, liberal, 
philosophical, and witty as the immortal Canon of 
St. Paul's himself ! — the elegant and accomplished 
Dr. Everard, Bishop of Waterford ; and many other 
of the Irish Catholic Hierarchy of former times, — 
gentlemen by birth, and fine gentlemen by all the 



6 



rights and advantages of a foreign and classical edu- 
cation, — then furnished me with reasons and motives 
for aiding, in my little way, the emancipation of my 
Catholic fellow-countrymen. 

With respect to my Romances, they found their 
way into boudoirs and drawing-rooms, where better 
and sterner Propaganda might have been rejected ; 
and I cannot but triumph in the consciousness that, 
like the nibbling of the mouse at the lion's net, I 
assisted to set the noble creature free, — for to per- 
sonify Ireland in her happiest phase of the virtues 
peculiar to her, and the wit and genius which has 
ever been her own, she is a noble creature. 

You proceed, my Lord : — " If so, what name can 
we give to the writer, who, soberly professing to 
instruct and inform, scruples not to fabricate or pro- 
pagate an untrue story, which would suffice, if proved, 
to blight for ever the character of many respectable 
and dignified individuals, — to hold up to public abhor- 
rence the hierarchy of a religion professed by millions 
of Christians, and record against that religion itself 
a zveighty charge of hypocrisy and imposture ? — and 
this has her Ladyship done, in the passage to which 
I wish to call the attention of my readers. No longer 
professing to be a novel writer, she stood before the 
public as one who would enlighten and improve it, 
by new information upon a distant land, its inhabit- 
ants, its customs, and religion ; and the public had a 
right to expect from her, veracity and accuracy in 
her statements ; and the obligation, thus contracted 
by her, was doubled by the claims which those of 



7 



whom she wrote had to a just and true representa- 
tion. Instead of this, she has too often drawn a 
most unfaithful portrait of their characters and 
opinions ; and has treated their most holy sentiments 
with an indecent levity, and a cruel inattention, 
which, whether we consider her as a lady, a Chris- 
tian, or a writer, cannot be reprobated in terms too 
severe for her deserts. The following is the passage 
which / now desire principally to take into considera- 
tion : — 

" 1 The sacrilegious curiosity of the French broke 
through all obstacles to their seeing the chair of St. 
Peter. They actually removed its superb casket, and 
discovered the relic. Upon its mouldering and dusty 
surface were traced carvings, which bore the appear- 
ance of letters. The chair was quickly brought into 
a better light, the dust and cobwebs removed, and 
the inscription (for an inscription it was) faithfully 
copied. The writing is in Arabic characters, and is 
the well-known confession of the Mahometan faith : 
( There is but one God, and Mahomet is his prophet. 9 
It is supposed that this chair had been, among the 
spoils of the Crusaders, offered to the Church, at a 
time when a taste for antiquarian lore and the deci- 
phering of inscriptions was not yet in fashion. This 
story has been since hushed up, the chair replaced ; 
and none but the unhallowed remember the fact, 
and none but the audacious repeat it. Yet such there 
are even at Rome.' " * 

" The most compendious course," continues your 
* Lady Morgan's " Italy," vol. ii. 



s 



Eminence, " to confute this unblushing calumny would 
be, to quote the attestation of those who have been in 
the service of St. Peter's Church/' [a more compen- 
dious course would be, perhaps, to remove the cover, 
and show the chair ; the calumny might then have 
blushed, and the calumniator have stood convicted ;] 
" since a period antecedent to the invasion of Rome 
by the French, to the fact that the seals were never 
violated, nor the relic inspected by them. But it 
would be replied to this, That the men who could 
deceive the public, in the impious manner which Lady 
Morgan supposes, would have little scruple in giving 
any testimony necessary to countenance that deceit." 
This certainly would be the most natural conclusion, 

" But," your Eminence adds, " it is my wish to set 
this calumny at rest for ever " [and make an honest 
chair of this calumniated cathedra'] ; " and, at the 
same time, to give my Catholic readers information, 
which may not be uninteresting, upon this sacred 
relic of antiquity. I will first describe the chair of 
St. Peter : by this description, at once, it will be 
proved that it is not of Mahometan origin ; and that 
all antiquarian arguments tend to confirm the pious 
tradition of the Church. I will next give the strong 
grounds whereon this tradition rests ; and thereby 
demonstrate that this relic existed long before the 
Crusaders, or even Mahomet himself. In order to 
remove every shadow of doubt regarding the false- 
hood of her Ladyship's tale, I will lastly give a brief 
account of the circumstances which most probably 
led to its fabrication." 



9 



"A superb shrine of bronze, supported by four 
gigantic figures of the same materials, represent- 
ing four Doctors [in bronze] of the Church, closes 
the view of the nave of St. Peter's Church, and 
cannot have failed to attract the attention of my 
readers. The shrine is in the form of a throne, and 
contains a chair, which the Prince of the Apostles is 
supposed to have occupied as Bishop of Rome." 

" It is a tradition, certainly of great antiquity, 
that St. Peter was received in the house of the 
Senator Pudens, and there laid the foundation of the 
Roman Church " [in the house /] For this curious 
fact, your Grace refers us to " The Acts of St. Pu- 
dentiana." For this greatest of all human events, the 
less learned Christians would refer to " The Acts of 
the Apostles." It is probable that from this fair 
and earliest saint of the Christian Church your Emi- 
nence may have borrowed the consecrated name of 
your adoption. St. Pudentiana and her sister St. 
Prassida were the daughters of the Senator Pudens ; 
and haply, in the early vocation of your poetical piety, 
while wandering through the deep valley which sepa- 
rates the Esquiline Hill from the vineyards of the 
Viminal, you may have been struck with the beauty 
of the Church of St. Pudens and St. Pudentiana, 
raised upon the site of the Roman Senator's house, 
the tessellated pavement of which now forms the 
flooring of the lateral aisles. The picture of the fair 
saint and her sister Prassida (who is represented 
squeezing the blood of a martyr from a sponge) may 
have captivated your Celtic imagination ; and as you 



10 



knelt at her altar, you may have vowed, that should 
you ever be raised to the rank of the a Cardinalume" * 
by the divine mercy of the Church of Rome, it should 
be by the style and title of St. Pudentiana. 

Woman, my Lord Cardinal, has always been help- 
ful and influential in the Church; from St. Puden- 
tiana, ministering to the Prince of the Apostles, and 
the pious and magnificent Matilda, Countess of Tus- 
cany, the ally of Gregory the Great, and the foundress 
of his power through her wealth and munificence, 
down to a recent convert of the active mission of the 
Propaganda in Pagan regions — the Begum, Sombre. 
The funeral sermon of this Princess was preached by 
your Eminence, when a Bishop, with an earnest elo- 
quence, which recalled the Eloges Funebres of the 
Bossuets and Massillons, over the biers of the La 
Vallieres and other fair penitents of the Court of 
Louis XIV. The Romans still talked, up to the time 
of Pio Nono's flight, (when they had something else 
to think about,) of the magnificent Catafalque, 60 feet 
in height, reared in the Church of San Carlo della 
Valle; of the statue of Religion which stood at its 
head; and of the commanding figure of your Emi- 
nence, who stood at its base, arrayed in your epis- 
copal robes. You made no allusion to the past tenour 
of the life of this ex-Bayadere and recent Sovereign 
of one of the richest principalities in India. The 
wealthy Magdalen found favour in the Church's eyes, 
and "her sins were forgiven her ; for she loved much," 
and made large oblations. 

"The chair of St. Peter (continues your Emi- 

* Alfieri. 



11 



nence) is precisely such a one as we should have 
supposed to be given by a wealthy Roman Senator 
to a ruler of the Church which he esteemed and 
protected." (The Senator was, however, only a con- 
vert de la veille.)* " It is of wood, almost entirely 
covered with ivory, so as to be justly considered a 
curule chair. It may be divided into two principal 
parts : the square or cubic portion, which forms 
the body ; and the upright elevation behind, which 
forms the back. The former portion is four Roman 
palms in breadth across the front, two and a half 
at the side, and three and a half in height. It is 
formed by four upright posts, united together by 
transverse bars above and below. The sides are 
filled up by a species of arcade, consisting of two 
pilasters of carved wood, supporting, with the corner 
posts, three little arches. The front is extremely 
rich, being divided into eighteen small compartments 
disposed in three rows. Each contains a basso- 
relievo in ivory, of the most exquisite finish, sur- 
rounded by ornaments of the purest gold. These 
bassi-relievi represent, not the feats of Mohammed, 
or Ali, or Osman, or any other Paynim chieftain, 
as the readers of Lady Morgan might expect, unless 
they knew that the religion of the prophet does not 
tolerate any graven images at all, — but the exploits of 
the monster-killing Hercules. The back of the chair 
is formed by a series of pilasters supporting arches, 
as at the sides : the pillars here are three in number, 

* St. Peter arrived in Rome, it is said, in the 44th year of the 
Christian era. 



12 



and the arches four. Above the cornice, which these 
support, rises a triangular pediment, giving to the 
whole a tasteful and architectural appearance. Be- 
sides the bassi-relievi above mentioned, the rest of 
the front, the mouldings of the back, and the tympa- 
num of the pediment, are all covered with beautifully- 
wrought ivory. The chair, therefore, is manifestly of 
Roman workmanship, a curule chair, such as might 
be occupied by the Head of the Church, [St. Peter, 
the fisherman,] adorned with ivory and gold, as might 
befit the house of a wealthy Roman senator ; while 
the exquisite finish of the sculpture forbids us to con- 
sider it more modern than the Augustan age, when 
the arts were in their greatest perfection. There is 
another circumstance which deserves particular men- 
tion in the description of this chair, and exactly 
corresponds to the time of St. Peter's first journey 
to Rome. This event took place in the reign of 
Claudius : and it is precisely at this period that, as 
Justus Lipsius has well proved, sellce agestatorice 
began to be used by men of rank in Rome ; for it is 
after this period that Tuetonius, Seneca, Tacitus, 
Juvenal, and Martial, mention the practice of being 
borne in chairs. This was done by means of rings 
placed at their sides, through which poles were 
passed ; and thus the chair was carried by slaves, upon 
their shoulders. At each side of St. Peter's chair 
are two rings, manifestly intended for this purpose. 
Thus, while the workmanship of this venerable relic 
necessarily refers its date to an early period of the 
Roman Empire, this peculiarity fixes it at a period 



13 



not earlier than the reign of Claudius, in which St. 
Peter arrived at Rome."* 

Such, my Lord Cardinal, are your proofs of the 
Augustan age of the relic ; and the details, pic- 
turesque and minute, gorgeous and elaborate, would 
do honour to the inventories of a Mabillon, or a 
Montfaucon, a Walpole, or a George Robins, — all 
great writers in their several ways on similar sub- 
jects. Your description, however, though eloquent, 
is not original ; for it is taken textually, literally, 
from a work which now lies before me upon my 
library table. It is an old-fashioned Latin work, by 
one who, like yourself, was a Prince of the Church, 
Cardinal Gregorio Cortese, and it bears the quaint 
title, " Of the Journey of the Prince of the Apostles 
to Rome, and of his doings there ! " Perhaps I shall 
better bring it to your recollection by giving the title 
as it stands : — 

" Gregorii Cortesii, 
S. R. E. Cardinalis 
De Romano Itinere 
Gestisque 
Principis Apostolortjm, 
Libri Duo." 

But is it probable, my Lord, that St. Peter, the 
humble fisherman of Galilee, permitted himself to 
be seated or carried in this gorgeous chair, on the 
shoulders of slaves, f as his successor Pio Nino does 

* " Remarks," &c. 

f If the term Sellarii may be so construed. When Belisarius 
was so carried in one of his triumphs, he was carried by captives 
taken by him in war. 



14 



at this day ? — he who had so recently heard his 
Divine Master declare that "foxes had holes, and 
the birds of the air had nests, but the Son of Man 
hath not where to lay his head/' — he, to whose 
Eastern habits such a chair must have been repug- 
nant! who had taught, not ex cathedra, but, like the 
Master he served, walking, or reclining on the lap of 
earth. The day was then far off, some three cen- 
turies, when the "servants of the servant of God" 
should repose in chairs of state, or mount thrones of 
ivory and gold. They had not as yet turned the 
judicial Basilicas of Pagan Rome into the gorgeous 
temples of public worship. If they sat upon a raised 
seat, it was a stone concealed in the catacombs or 
in caverns, as their perilous position dictated. The 
early Christians, the humble reformers of "cultes" 
Pagan or Jewish, which no longer served the pur- 
poses to which they had been destined, though still 
supported by the "Church" of Jupiter, and the 
"State" of the Caesars, were the secret societies of 
those times of transition. Their Divine Philosophy was 
deemed treasonable and sacrilegious ; and if Pudens, 
the Christian Senator, gave St. Peter a chair to teach 
from, it was more likely to be one of stone (like that 
in the Church of St. Peter at Venice), than a chair of 
ivory and gold carried on the shoulders of his fellow- 
creatures. 

Before I proceed, I must quote a few words from 
the book which has served the purposes of both your 
Eminence and myself. " And because," says Fran- 
cesco Maria Turrigio, (quoted in the Cardinal Cor- 



15 



tese's note, at page 317^) "because from great age 
St. Peter's chair was going to pieces, and had got 
somewhat ricketty, it was encompassed round with 
iron hoops, and with bars of wood." " It is, how- 
ever, to be observed," continues Cardinal Cortese, 
that Turrigio, accurate as he was, and always deter- 
mined to inspect with his own eyes [a privilege denied 
both to your Eminence and to the Cardinal Cortese, 
as you assert the cover of the chair has not been 
raised for three centuries,] what he describes, was 
mistaken, when he said that those ornaments are 
made of metal or pinchbeck (aurichalco) ; for in real 
truth they are of fine gold : and this was proved by 
Alexander VII., who had it duly probed by men 
skilled in such matters, as is testified by Phcebeus, in 
page lxx. of his dissertation." * 

This extravagant and sumptuous Pontiff was at 
that time doing the honours of Rome by his Royal 
convert, Queen Christina of Sweden, and as right 
royally as King Solomon did by the Queen of Sheba. 
The magnificent " e diver si regalii" he prepared for 
her, exceeded in expense even the celebrated Carousel 
of Louis XIV. Among other presents offered by the 
gallant Pontiff, to the spirituele Queen, was a silver 
carriage, sculptured by the great Bernini, and which, 
with the six horses that drew it and the coachmen and 
lacqueys, was all draped and dressed in celestial blue 
velvet, brocaded with silver." The Sunday following 

* "Ex purissimo auro revera sunt, quod Alexandri VII. jussu 
a .viris peritis compertum sua aetate, fuisse testatur." — Phcebeus, 
pag. lxx. Laudatce Dissertationis. 



16 

the Royal conversion, his Holiness entertained her 
with a public dinner, and a drama "recitatoli in musica 
eccellentemente." * 

Still further, your Eminence seems to have passed 
over the curious anecdote given by Cardinal Cortese : 
that " Bishops, from the earliest Christian ages, were 
buried with their chairs ; that they were carried to 
the grave seated in them ; and that these chairs, 
especially those of the Apostles of Christ, sometimes 
were drawn out of the charnel gloom (ex tenebris in 
lucem erutas), and so venerated and worshipped, that 
the successors of a Bishop, when they were elected, 
were solemnly chaired upon them,"f — an ostenta- 
tious ceremony impossible in the early days of Chris- 
tian depression. J 

Your Eminence then proceeds to give the moral 
grounds of the probable identity of the chair, by 
the testimonies of Eusebius, in the fourth century; 
Nicephorus, Vallerius, and other great and grave 
names, " qui jinissent en us," (as Boileau has it ;) — 
" testimonies which," you observe, " are, I trust, more 
than sufficient to overthrow the foolish story with 

* Platina, Vite de Pontifice, page 874. 
f Cortese, page 313, and note. 

% I beg to add one more description of this chair, by one of the 
greatest modern authorities, " Cattedra, 16. II Bernini fu 1' archi- 
tetto di questa imponente machina. Essa e tutta in bronzo," &c. 
&c. " II tutto e in parte dorato, con disposizione grandiosa edi 
bell' eftello, e devesi alia munificenza di Alessando VII., li cui 
stemmi vedonsi ne piedistalli, che sorreggono li detti dottori, e 
contornano 1' altare. La fusione di questo lavoro fu assidata a Gio. 
Aretusi, che vi travaglio 3 anni continui." — Marchese Guiseppe 
Melchiorri. 



17 



which Lady Morgan has treated her readers." But 
there is one old saint whom you have omitted to 
refer to, who has always come forward in my defence, 
whenever I have been " had up * by the Sbirri of 
Holy Offices, before that great and infallible judge — : 
the Public ; I mean, my Lord, Saint Veritas, — one, 
perhaps, who is better known among the army of 
martyrs, than in the Church's accredited Calendar of 
Saints ! 

" Thus far, then," you observe, " it is evident 
that this chair is precisely such a one as the anti- 
quarian would expect to find, claiming the honour 
of having been the episcopal throne of the first 
Roman Pontiff. This alone would be sufficient to 
overthrow the calumnious statement of Lady Mor- 
gan ; and the confutation will be much more com- 
plete, when we give the grounds of moral probability 
that it is the identical chair used for this purpose." 

Your Eminence then goes on to prove that such 
objects were not merely meant as curiosities, nor 
the custom of reverencing them solely Catholic ; for 
you cite from a cotemporary periodical of your Re- 
marks the following passage : — " We are told there 
is still preserved, in Lutterworth Church, Wickliffe's 
chair, together with the pulpit from which ho was 
accustomed to preach, a piece of his cloak, and an 
oak table which belonged to him. What is the 
meaning of these objects being kept in a Protestant 
Church?" 

Wickliffe ! Before that august name the mind 
pauses in instinctive reverence ! It recalls the light 

€ 



18 



that first dawned upon the human intellect, in the 
darkest ages of ignorance and superstition, of moral 
prostration and physical suffering ! — ages whose 
annals are steeped in blood! — ages of the rack and 
of the faggot, of the dungeon and the cell, of the 
despotism of dogmas ! the tyranny of irresponsible 
power ! The Bassi Tempi ! the mediaeval times ! which 
work up so well in the picturesque architecture of 
Boudoir-Churches, got up by fashionable Decorateurs, 
(those modern restorers of " Christian art,") and 
which tell in the tapestry of saintly Elegantes for the 
ornament of their domestic oratories ; but which 
were, nevertheless, times that surpass in ignorance 
and crime, in suffering and oppression, all that the 
historians of the antique world have left on record, 
from the books of Moses to the volumes of Hero- 
dotus. 

In alluding to Wickliffe, your Eminence has 
awakened associations not easily lulled. John Wick- 
liffe was the Evangelist of the Reformation ! the 
teacher of free inquiry ! the champion of private 
judgment ! and, after Magna Charta, the great sup- 
porter of constitutional liberty ! — that instinct of the 
Race to which he belonged. He was the first who 
gave to the people of England, in their own fine 
Saxon English, those "Gospel truths/' till then hidden 
from them in learned languages, known only to the 
Priesthood, and some few of the educated of the de- 
scendants of the Norman Barons. He was the first 
of his order who felt and thought and wrote for the 
people : and his " Pauper Rusticus" or " The Poor 



19 



Caitiff," was a volume of tracts which well deserves 
the title of " The Poor Man's Library ; " containing 
the " Mirroure of Maydens," which fathers of fami- 
lies may still put into their children's hands ; and 
the clever tract against " Able Beggary ! " — a blow to 
the powerful influence of the new order of begging 
friars, never parried. He replaced the jargon of the 
schoolmen, whose abstraction and subtilty had super- 
seded the perspicuous simplicity with which the first 
Christian teachers had explained the doctrines of 
salvation, by the logic of common sense ; while his 
own Qncestiones Logicce might have puzzled a Cardinal, 
even of these days ! 

For a time his fortune and great reputation went 
hand in hand together. He protected his sove- 
reign, the gallant Edward III., against Papal aggres- 
sion, by defending the Crown against the humiliating 
demands of the Pope, Urban VI., who was conti- 
nually disposing of the ecclesiastical benefices and 
dignities in England. But Edward was not a Prince 
addicted to the slavery of the See of Rome. He kept 
a vigilant eye over Papal usurpation ! and rewarded 
and protected Mm who so ably wrote against that 
usurpation, by bestowing on him the living of Lut- 
terworth, and even sending him to Rome (with the 
Bishop of Bangor) on the honourable mission for 
treating of the liberties of the Church of England. 

Notwithstanding all this royal favour and princely 
protection, Wickliffe fell under the persecutions of 
the Papal Court. The Pontiff resolved to silence the 
Reformer ; and though supported by the great Duke 



20 



of Lancaster, Earl Percy, and the Queen-Mother, he 
fell a victim to his own virtues and moral courage ; 
and the author of so many glorious works in the 
cause of Truth was cited by Pope Urban VI. to 
appear before the awful Apostolical tribunal at 
Rome ! Death, a natural death, saved him from 
further persecution. He was seized, while offici- 
ating in his church at Lutterworth, with his death 
illness, and expired three days after. His body 
was buried in the chancel of his church : but it 
was afterwards disinterred, by order of a decree of 
the Council of Constance, in the year 1415, when, 
after forty-five articles of his pure and fearless doc- 
trines had been condemned, he himself was pro- 
nounced, in the name of the Council, to have died 
an obstinate heretic ; and his bones were ordered to 
be dug up, (if they could be distinguished from the 
bones of the faithful,) and thrown into the flames. 
The brutal sentence was not put in act till the year 
1428, when Pope Martin V. commanded Fleming, 
Bishop of Lincoln, to execute the decree of the 
CounciL His remains were accordingly disinterred, 
then burnt, and afterwards cast into the Swift, — a 
streamlet which ran by Lutterworth. It is not now 
possible to ascertain whether any monument was 
ever erected to his memory : if any frail memorial 
of this kind had once marked the spot of his inter- 
ment, it doubtless was destroyed by the same hands 
which tore his body out of its awful depository.* 

* Memoirs of the Life of Dr. Wickliffe, by tlie Rev. Henry 
Hervey Baber, M. A. 



21 



It was reserved for the present time to revive 
and consecrate the name of him who took the initia- 
tive in philosophy — of Bacon ; in religious reforma- 
tion — of Luther. The beautiful basso-relievo which 
now illustrates the rustic, quiet church of Lutter- 
worth, was an offering made by a private committee 
of gentlemen to the memory of its immortal Rec- 
tor ; and was executed by an English sculptor, who 
honours the great artistic name he inherits as his 
birthright. * 

While the remains of WicklifFe were thus scatter- 
ed on the waters, the preservation of his chair seems 
doubtful. If it ever held a place in the church of Lut- 
terworth, it is there no longer. But if it were, it is no 
proof, that because a wooden piece of furniture existed 
from the fifteenth century till the present, that a similar 
object might exist from the first half of the first cen- 
tury of the Christian era — from the reign of Augustus 
Caesar, to the reign of Pope Pius IX. in the nine- 
teenth. 

This resistance of WicklifFe to the Papal power, 
then at its height, and of his heroic Sovereign to 
Papal aggression, is a proof, if such were wanting, 
that Catholic England was, from its earliest times, 
Anti-Papal. Even King John, craven as he was in 
many instances, was 

" Every inch a king," 

when Rome threatened him with aggression. Shak- 



* Richard Westmacott, Esq. 



22 



speare, the truest chronicler of English feelings, does 
but repeat the words of John himself, when he makes 
him say, in answer to the Pope's emissary, Cardinal 
Pandulph, — 

" Tell him this tale, 
And from the mouth of England 
Add thus much more, — that no Italian priest 
Shall tythe or toll in our dominions ! " 

But I offer a thousand apologies for this long 
digression. It is the inherent fault of female author- 
ship, as of female life, to give way to these outbursts of 
feeling on particular subjects of their favourite opinions 
which deranges all logical sequence, and renders their 
style inaccurate, even when their judgment is right. 
I return to your Eminence's luminous pages. 

Your Eminence continues, — " It will perhaps 
appear to my readers, that the confutation of Lady 
Morgan's mis-statement ought to end here. But 
there is one point, which I think may be still wanting 
to satisfy the incredulity of some of her admirers. 
The story, these will say, may not be perfectly correct ; 
but it is impossible that it should not have had some 
foundation in fact. In the Church of St. Peter at 
Venice, which was the Patriarchal Church till 1807, 
has long been preserved a chair of stone, called by 
the people the Chair of St. Peter. It is not upon 
any altar, but stands against the wall, between the 
second and third altars. In 1749, Flaminio Cornaro, 
or Cornelius, published his e Ecclesice Venetce An- 
tigua Monumental In the second volume, page 194, 
is an engraving of this monument, accompanying 



23 

his description of it. The history which he gives is 
the same as is recorded upon a tablet over the chair, 
— that it was given by the Emperor Michael to the 
Doge, Peter Grandonicus, in 1310. The back of 
the chair was, however, adorned with a rich cuflc 
inscription, and Cornaro desired the learned Jos. 
Assemani to decipher it for his work. It is useless 
to attempt to account for or excuse the erroneous 
interpretation which he gave. One thing is evident, 
that he did not wish by it to encourage any deceit. 
The writing contained, according to his reading, 
several portions of the second Psalm ; and among 
them the words, 'The work of Abdalla, the servant of 
God/ — and, ' Antioch, the city of God.' The learned 
Orientalist Horberg, in the main, confirmed this ex- 
planation. Upon the calculations which Assemani 
made in consequence of this inscription, Cornaro 
came to the following conclusion regarding the date 
of the monument. This chair, therefore, was con- 
structed in the eighth century ; nor assuredly was it 
ever used by the Prince of the Apostles, nor by any 
of his successors, in the See of Antioch, before the 
year 742."* 

" Here then is laid open the origin of Lady Mor- 
gan's foolish and wicked tale. The stone chair, called 
by the vulgar that of St. Peter, and kept in the 
Patriarchal Church of that Apostle in Venice, has 
been confounded with the ivory throne of the Vatican 
Basilic, by some blundering or malicious person. 
The story has been repeated to her Ladyship : she 
* "Kemarks," page 28. 



24 



deemed it too well suited to her purposes of misre- 
presentation to merit examination, and gave it to the 
public with all the assurance which points, and all 
the levity which wings, the worst shafts of calumny. 
There is something truly profligate in her waste of 
human character, whether we consider her assassinat- 
ing of private reputations by personal anecdote, or 
cutting down whole classes of men, as in the instance 
I have been confuting." * (Here follows a quotation 
from Horace, more becoming to a Heathen Satirist 
than a Christian Bishop, and of which I will spare 
you the repetition.) 

My Lord, I thank you for the indulgence with 
which your Eminence offers me the benefit of this 
" ignorant mistake," (and never did the Church grant 
a more gratuitous one !) but I decline profiting by it. 
My "foolish and wicked story of the chair" was no 
mistake — of mine at least. It was related to me, 
and accepted in the most implicit faith, on the 
authority of two of the greatest Travellers, Anti- 
quarians, and Virtuosi of their age, who were of 
that illustrious corps of Savans, the friends and 
companions in Peace, and the intellectual staff in 
War, of the Emperor Napoleon— Denon and Cham- 
pollion. 

The night before our departure from Paris for 
Italy, on our first, last, and memorable visit, many 
distinguished — I may say illustrious — men were 
assembled in our drawing-room in the Rue de 
Helder. Every one was offering an opinion as to 

* " Habakkuk est capable de tout!" — Voltaire. 



25 



the objects most worthy of our notice, — when the 
Baron Denon, who, in one of the happiest phases 
of the most brilliant raconteur of his time, had 
been describing his visit to the Inquisition, when 
he accompanied Buonaparte into Spain, and when, 
satiated with the rueful relics which that awful 
place revealed to his antiquarian curiosity, he fell 
asleep on the table of the terrible Hall of Coun- 
cil, where he actually passed the night, — then re- 
lated the anecdote of the discovery of the Chair of 
St. Peter, adding, "The inscription was in a cufk 
character, that puzzled even Champollion and the 
most learned Arabic scholars of the Institut." And 
thus, "I told the tale as it was told to me," care- 
lessly and fearlessly, which has drawn down on 
my work the Anathema of your Eminence's "Re- 
marks on Lady Morgan's Statements regarding* St 
Peter's Chair/' 

In defence of the sacrilegious French I have 
nothing to say. They showed as little delicacy 
towards the Sagro Cateno, the most sacred relic of 
the Church of San Lorenzo, of Genoa, as they did 
to the Chair of St. Peter. Till the arrival of those 
meddling Savans, "qui se meloient de tout," the 
Sagro Cateno had passed for a dish made " of one 
entire and perfect emerald," which had served at the 
Last Supper, and was forbidden to human touch. 
The French first asserted it had been part of the 
spoil taken by the Crusaders at Csesarea, in the 
twelfth century ; but when it was carried to Paris, 

* Hegarding! " Dans ce niot la^je reconnais mon sang" 

D 



26 



and presented to the Institut, being subjected to the 
test of scientific scrutiny, it proved to be a piece of 
green glass, — a pious fraud which had escaped the 
discovery of ages ! 

I trust, my Lord Cardinal, that in my desire to 
defend myself against your imputations of being 
"false, foolish, slanderous, and profligate/' though I 
feel conscious that I was only indiscreet, — I trust, I 
say, that I have written nothing offensive to your 
feelings, nor even to your prejudices ; for such I 
cannot but consider your passionate adherence to 
objects merely material, and relics more than doubt- 
ful. This " last infirmity of a noble mind " exhibited 
itself even in the beautiful and solemn ceremonial of 
your recent Enthronization. When you "ascended 
the pulpit, having your mitre on your head, and 
your crozier in your hand, and your train held up 
by Deacons, the Rev. Mr. F. Leare and the Rev. 
Mr. J. Wenham," and addressed your immense con- 
gregation with an eloquence all your own, you at 
once rushed ainto the subject of the Chair. "The 
Church's type," the " Episcopal seat," the " chair," the 
" throne," the " fixed, stable, immovable, well built 
up throne," is throughout your discourse presented 
to the imagination of your hearers. Descending to 
" the very Catacombs themselves," you find it with 
delighted surprise " in front of the altar," and " above 
the very tombs of the martyrs," in that "the first 
abode of sublime Christian truth." Emerging from 
these hiding-places, it " re-appears in the magnificent 
temples snatched from the Heathen, and the gor- 



27 



geous Basilicas which yet remain a monument of 
early Christian zeal." But whether in darkness or in 
light, in the day of persecution or that of triumph, 
" symbolizing still, by the stability of the seat, and 
the permanency of the session, the everlasting unity 
and sameness of the doctrines there to be taught." 
"Thus then, my brethren," adds your Eminence, 
" came the idea of the Pontifical chair or seat to be 
associated with the discharge of the great office of a 
Bishop ; and that word, which at first signified only 
the chair in which he sat, came by degrees to be 
synonymous with the extent of his jurisdiction." 

It is impossible, my Lord, to read these eloquent 
disquisitions on seats, chairs, and thrones, and not to 
feel what was the intense and all-absorbing idea of 
your life — the Eureka of your calculations. 

In this power of concentration, " the binding up 
of all the corporal faculties" to one intent, lies the 
secret of success ! It was this one all-pervading idea 
of his life that originated the Flying Chair of Friar 
Bacon* (as the immovable one of your Eminence). 
Among other sublime results of the scientific dis- 
coveries of this prodigy of the 13th century; — the 
chair which after the lapse of ages becomes a practi- 
cal fact, — which receives and accommodates all ranks 
and classes, from princes to paupers, — which, " anni- 

* Roger Bacon, a Franciscan friar, the prophet of experimen- 
tal philosophy! the one bright particular star, that shone upon 
the dark horizon of his time. His discoveries drew on him the 
fear and hatred of his fraternity: he was accused of dealing with 
the devil, stripped of his Professorship at Oxford, and imprisoned 
in the cell of his convent till within a few years of his death. 

D 2 



28 



hilating both space and time/' multiplies its utilities 
and comforts ad infinitum for the general advantage 
of society, — the Flying Chair, of a Railway Train! 
It is, again, to this wondrous power, this intensity 
of one great idea, worked out to its utmost applica- 
tion, that the apparent miraculous mystery of the 
Electric Telegraph is due ! — that great moral agent of 
the present day, which rushes to the aid of justice, 
detecting by a flash the fact which confounds crime, 
and unmasks hypocrisy, — that answers the queries 
of restless devotion, and anticipates the anxieties of 
love, 

" Speeds the soft intercourse from soul to soul, 
And wafts a sigh from Indus to the Pole." 

Powers, my Lord, undreamed of in the antique 
times, are now developed in nature, for the benefit 
of humanity, through the superior talent of the 
gifted, and through the influence of that, which, after 
all, must be considered as the most certain effect, and 
the most efficacious cause, of civilization and pro- 
gress, — I mean the Press ! The tedious voyages of 
Ulysses and iEneas are now pleasure trips for holiday- 
making tradesmen ; and even St. Paul's voyage with 
the troops of Caesar, sailing from Adramyttium to 
Puteoli, hugging the coast from port to port, occupied 
more time, than now suffices to cross the steep 
Atlantic, and the then unknown Pacific, or to reach 
those greater worlds then undiscovered, which are 
now so flourishing and so free, so civilized and so 
prosperous ! 

Even Art, divine Art, now no longer restricts her 



29 



exquisite powers to founding a spiritual faith through 
the medium of the senses. She no longer works 
exclusively for churches or palaces, for the galleries 
of the great, or the oratories of the saintly; but 
submits to be useful, as well as sublime, and spreads 
her pictorial knowledge for the benefit and delight 
of the million over all regions : while her noblest 
emanation, Architecture, resorts to new elements of 
construction, and, no longer "breathing a browner 
horror o'er the woods," by raising " hallowed walls," 
for the incarceration of ignorance or power, she now 
exhibits her Crystal Temple, dedicated to Human 
Industry ! not concealing, but revealing, the inge- 
nuity of the mighty enterprise, where thousands are 
working with courageous pertinacity, animated by the 
cheering spirit of National Enthusiasm ! This, at 
least, is a Temple raised with no arriere pensee, or 
selfish view of personal aggrandizement ; but in the 
universal interest of a brotherhood of nations ! All 
honour be to the mind that conceived, and the genius 
that worked out the conception of this great Moral 
Edifice ! which entombs no youth, all palpitating 
with life and passion ! nor glooms declining age with 
visionary terrors ! The Paraclete ! where 

" No weeping orphan sees his father's stores 
The shrines irradiate and emblaze the floors; 
Nor silver saints, by dying misers given, 
To bribe the rage of unrequited Heaven;"* — 

that great combination, which has given to mechani- 
cal science its highest development, and left the cal- 
culations of Archimedes far behind in their results. 

* Pope. 



30 



These, my Lord Cardinal, are the Miracles of the 
age we live in ! — miracles, worked out, not by the 
assumed subversion of the laws of nature, but in 
consonance with their mighty operations, and in 
consciousness of their infinite resources. Know- 
ledge now holds the place of dogmas, and scatters 
her illuminated missals over the known world, so that 
all who live, may learn : and Superstition ! that cross 
between craft and ignorance, 

" Who from the rending earth and bursting skies 
Saw Gods descend and Fiends infernal rise; 
With Heaven's own thunder shook the world below, 
And played the God, an engine on the foe;"* — 

Superstition ! shrinks within her cowl, and vanishes 
before the light of Truth, like one of the dark phan- 
toms she had herself created to tax the ignorant 
credulity of her dupes. 

* Pope. If the splendid verses of Pope " come skipping rank 
and file" to the point of my pen, it is, that I have just benefited (in 
common with the honest and enlightened members of the Me- 
chanics' Institution of Leeds) from the Lectures lately delivered by 
the Earl of Carlisle, — as noble and philanthropic a lecturer as ever 
lured popular attention, through the music of poetry, to the civiliz- 
ing influence of the highest order of literature! Alexander Pope 
was a Roman Catholic, in the worst times of the penal statutes, 
enforced against his religion ! And it is curious to remark, that 
while he was loved and honoured by the greatest statesmen, pre- 
lates, and wits of his own time in England, his works were 
inscribed on the Index Expurgatorius of Rome! His dogma of 
"Whatever is, is bestj" was assigned as the cause! Pope is the 
most eminently polished and brilliant of British Classics! and his 
Defence by Lord Byron, and his Eloge by Lord Carlisle, are 
noble indemnities, for the condemnation of the Holy Office of Rome, 
— and even, for the temporary neglect of young England, to whose 
fathers the verse3 of Pope were as familiar as " Household Words." 



31 

My Lord, in an age like this, there is no standing 
still, nor going backward ! The world will neither 
stop nor retrograde. The spirit of movement, in- 
stinct in man in all times, which led Israel with 
her great Reformer to abandon the 66 fleshpots of 
Egypt," and risk the privations of the Wilderness ; 
The spirit which made Catholic England, and mo- 
nastic Ireland, anti-Papal for ages,* when the power 
of Papacy was greatest; The spirit which armed 
the always restive Gallican Church, f and called 
forth wit and philosophy from monastic seclusion, to 
enlighten and delight the world by " Les Lettres 
Provinciales,"J against the Bull Unigenitus; though 
Kings and their concubines allied themselves with 
Popes and Prelates for its support ; — that spirit 
glows more brightly than ever, throughout enlight- 
ened Europe. For the sole of the foot of ignorant 
bigotry there is no longer a resting-place ; but there 
is a highway open, my Lord, for enterprising Genius 
and earnest and honest intentions, which your Emi- 
nence might tread with a glory, to satisfy even your 
vaulting ambition, without the risk of its overleaping 
itself. Could you but consent "for the nonce" to 

* See the " History of the Norman Conquest," by the greatest 
historian of modern times — Augustus Thierry, vols. 1 and 2. 

f See " History of the Gallican Church," by Gregoire, Bishop 
of Blois. 

% See " Les Lettres Provinciates" du Pere Blaise Pascal. They 
are, says a French critic, " un melange de plaisanterie fine, et d'elo- 
quence forte, du sel de Moliere, et de la dialectique de Bossuet." 
While the accomplished Brotherhood of the Porte Roy ale sought „ 
by their diatribes against Jesuitism, to render the Jesuits odious, 
Pascal did more, — he rendered them ridiculous ! 



32 



leave behind you u your consecrated Chairs and im- 
movable Tables," the fittest furniture for catacombs 
and caverns, — to leave your fallible Pope under the 
protection of 12,000 French bayonets, 25,000 grim 
Austrians, and his faithful motley Garde du Corps of 
Swiss supernumeraries : (types of Rome's ancient bar- 
barian invaders, the Gauls and Tuetons:) — would you 
but turn your steps to the beautiful land of your race, 
Ireland! — There, my Lord, there is much to do, that 
might be best done, by one who, like yourself, shares 
the religion and idiosyncrasy of the people. Remem- 
ber that all the great Reformers of Christian times > 
were reared in the cloister or issued from the Church. 
Savonarola^* the apostle of religious and patriotic 
independence in Italy; Wickliffe in England; Luther 
in Germany; and Father Mathew in Ireland! who 

* Savonarola, a Dominican monk, of a noble family, and great 
genius, directed his powers to the reformation of the Church; and 
was condemned to be burnt for his sermons on the Papal despotism 
and corruption of the time, which he delivered in the pulpits of 
Florence, with the inspiration of a Jeremiah, and the eloquence of 
a Demosthenes! He predicted the Reformation of the sixteenth 
century. He declaimed against the Clergy of the Court of Rome, — 
demanded a Council to debate on the deposition of the reigning 
Pontiff, Alexander VI., — and scoffed at the excommunication which 
forbid him to preach any more. Various lives of Savonarola, 
written in the spirit of the different factions of Rome, are still 
extant — one by the celebrated Pic i>e la Mirandole, who paints 
him as " un Saint a prodiges ! " — another by the learned Tiraeoschi, 
who describes him as " un homme qui declame avec fureur contre un 
Pontif, a la verite tres vicieux, mais que toute l'Eglise reconnaissait 
pour son chef," &c. Whatever were Savonarola's faults, even in 
the eyes of his opponents, his atrocious and unjust punishment 
excited disgust and horror, even in those times of cruelty and 
injustice! He was condemned and executed May 1498. 



33 



improved upon the partial restrictions of St. Patrick* 
himself, and effected a Reform, once deemed impos- 
sible by Church or State, — the Reform of Temper- 
ance ! boldly appealing from Ireland drunk, to Ireland 
sober, in testimony of her undisguised excellence ! 

Here, my Lord, your presence is an anomaly ! A 
few years back, under the penal enactments of the 
times, it would have been according to the authority 
of the greatest lawyers of the day — High Treason ! 
Your very appearance in your picturesque costume, 
imposed by the mise en scene of a Church the most 
pictorial of all others, is even now — a Misdemeanour ! 
Your See of Westminster is 

"A sound signifying nothing!" 

and the maniloquent titles bestowed on you, through 
" the divine mercies of Rome," are only available in 
England in the private circles of your own Flock, 
where kneeling ladies kiss your extended hand, re- 
versing all laws of the courtesy of nations.f But in 
Ireland, a legitimate and noble mission is open to you I 
There, as Doctor Wiseman, Doctor of Divinity, the 
learned, pious, and accomplished dignitary of the an- 
cient and now flourishing Church of seven millions of 
Irish Catholics, you might replace the vulgar and 
perverting oratory of the Priest-Tribunes of the day, 
who inflame the passions of their followers with those 
coarse but kindling appeals which come 



* I allude to the old Irish toast — " Long life to St. Pathrick ! 
who put the fast on the mate, and not on the whishkey." 
"f A ceremony never performed by ladies in Rome. 



34 



" Warm from the bog, and faithful to its fires;" 

and by substituting your own polished eloquence and 
profound reasoning powers, you might and could 
dispel the dark ignorance of the lower classes — source 
of their crimes, as of their prostration to the influ- 
ence of men, who inculcate no peace from the pulpit, 
and send no penitent from the Confessional ! to 
arrest crime, or disperse conspiracy! 

But here, my Lord Cardinal, in this great Metro- 
polis of the World, you must have observed that your 
presence can only rouse the national spirit against 
foreign aggression, to the extreme of popular excite- 
ment, or awaken the ancient antipathies of England 
against Papal interference — even to intolerance! Be- 
fore your fatal mission from the Chair of the Vatican, 
and ever since the passing of the great Charter of 
Catholic Emancipation, — inviolable be it hoped as 

" That thing John signed at Kunnymede," — 

all distinctions and differences, social, civil, and poli- 
tical, between Catholic and Protestant, had melted 
away throughout the Empire; or had become mere 
matter of history, only occasionally resorted to by 
the shallow and discontented, for temporary and 
selfish purposes; or from a morbid passion for no- 
toriety of whatever kind, — that disease inherent in 
the Irish temperament. — Here, my Lord, the recent 
aggression of your ill-advised Pontiff, who has been 
restored to, and is kept on his own throne by foreign 
arms, may have dangerous consequences, provoked 
more by outward forms and exterior seernings than by 



35 



any innate bigotry of the people of England to the 
Catholic laity of the realm, for whom the most per- 
fect respect and good-will is entertained and professed. 
But in Ireland! if your mission be to preach the Gospel 
of Peace! to inculcate the doctrine of Education! (not 
the education of the cloister — learning without know- 
ledge, and intellectual prostration in place of free en- 
quiry,) — In Ireland, my Lord, all parties and sects will 
welcome your advent; and you may do more good 
for your own country than all the Cardiriali Prot- 
tettori of the sacred college ever effected, for the 
nations they have represented, for centuries. You 
may open the book of Universal History to the Ca- 
tholic youth of all classes of the land, who will eagerly 
group around a distinguished Pastor of their own 
faith, — they will learn patiently from you, to compare 
wretched Ireland as of old — the gift of a Pope whom 
she did not then acknowledge as her master, to a 
foreign invader whom she considered as her insolent 
foe;— you may show them Ireland, during successive 
ages of a barbarous despotism, quailing and suffering 
under the Catholic sway of the Houses of Plantage- 
net, of York, of Lancaster, of Tudor, and of Stuart, 
— all alike oppressive and extortionate through their 
delegated representatives, who, from the De Lacys, 
to the StrafFords, lashed them into those rebellions, 
for purposes of forfeiture, which originated the penal 
statutes of a Protestant legislation ; — you may bid 
them 

"Look upon that picture, then on this!" 
The picture of their present happy and dignified 



36 



condition, partaking of all the blessings of a free 
and constitutional government, without one of the 
humiliating restrictions which still keep Nobles 
slaves in Russia, and dependants in Austria! Recall 
to them that they are now, as an integral part of the 
greatest Empire in the world, participating in all its 
lofty distinctions, and enjoying all the advantages of 
civil, religious, and political liberty, — without one 
fragment of a cruel and despotic penal code, re- 
maining, to impede them in their great career of 
honour, and ambition; or of the respectable pursuits of 
honest industry;— Lords Chancellors, Chief Justices, 
Attorneys, and Solicitors-General, Privy Councillors, 
Military Commanders by sea and land, Governors 
of Colonies, Ministers of State, Ambassadors, do- 
mestic inmates of the Court of their Sovereign, and, 
above all, Legislators! — all offices, legislative and pro- 
fessional, open to them! Available for all orders of 
honorary distinction, from the Garter of King Edward, 
to the ribbon of St. Patrick ; and unavailable only, for 
superseding the Primate of Ireland in his pulpit of 
Armagh, or turning His Grace of Canterbury from 
that altar where Thomas a Becket was murdered! 
Show them that, even when troublesome and fro- 
ward, as petted prodigals spoiled by unaccustomed 
indulgence, the "sons of Erin" sometimes break out 
in fits of boisterous discontent, still they are readily 
forgiven if repentant, and temperately punished if 
recusant ! 

Still more, you could teach them, my Lord, as a 
matter of taste, as well as of truth, to reject with con- 



37 



tempt the proffered ignorance of the Synods of Thurles 
and the Schools of Tuam. Teach them, fearlessly, 
that the sun does not move, nor the world stand still, 
whatever the most Right Reverend of Astronomers 
— who has recently measured the sun's disk with 
the precision of a mercer measuring silk — may 
assert to the contrary ! Encourage them to profit 
by those noble and bountiful Institutions, esta- 
blished without reference to creed, sect, or class, 
which their enlightened Sovereign, and her lettered 
and liberal Government, have opened for their recep- 
tion and benefit, in common with their Protestant 
and Dissenting compatriots. Tell them that these 
Seminaries are not "Godless ;" for the book of know- 
ledge is — God's own book ! disclosing to man the laws 
as well as the glories of his Creation. 

Invite them as men, as gentlemen — as the young 
Chivalry of Ireland — to remember the day, not 
"of old," when their Queen came among them, 
in Royal progress to the hearts and homes of seven 
millions of Catholic subjects, and their Protestant 
fellow-countrymen, without " fear of let or molesta- 
tion," to use the words of the old Irish passport of 
" the times of the troubles." Let it be for ever re- 
membered, she came cordially and fearlessly, seeking 
that "Cead mille falthe" which the Irish so simul- 
taneously gave her, while the embers of a scarce 
extinguished and rubbishy incendiarism, were yet 
flickering over the soil. — She came, to be received 
with unostentatious hospitality by her own Repre- 
sentative, who made himself responsible for the loy- 



38 



alty of the people, and the safety of their Queen, to 
the British Empire and the World at large ; and his 
judgment was justified by the result. — She came 
with a fearless spirit and affectionate confidence, 
which recalled the best days of her great prototype 
in political decision, as in jealousy for her country's 
honour; Queen Elizabeth, — described by one of our 
greatest modern writers, in words which it delights a 
woman's heart to copy : — 

"Her only effectual ally was the spirit of her 
people; and her policy flowed from that magnani- 
mous nature, which in the hour of peril teaches 
better lessons than those of cold reason. Her great 
heart inspired her with the higher and nobler wisdom 
which disdained to appeal to the low and sordid pas- 
sions of her people, even for the protection of their 
interests. In a righteous cause, she roused those 
generous affections which alone teach boldness, con- 
stancy, and foresight, and which are therefore the 
only safe guardians of the lowest as well as the 
highest interests of a nation." * 

My Lord, I will stop here. The emotions aroused by 
this portrait of a female Sovereign, so worthy to reign 
over a great people, are of too proud and pleasant 
a nature to permit of my recurring to a subject less 
gracious and more personal. It was my intention to 
have summed up my evidences in favour of my defence 
against the "Remarks" made by your Eminence, with 
more asperity than your sobered judgment may 
perhaps now approve. But I hasten to "levar Vinco- 

* Sir James Mackintosh. 



39 



modo" as a Roman seccatore, or professional bore, 
always observes, when he has exhausted his tedi- 
ousness upon the patience of his wearied audience ; 
and to resign myself with due submission to the fiat 
of that judge, by whose decision we must both abide, 
— Public Opinion ! 

I have the honour to be, my Lord Cardinal, 
With great respect, 
Your Eminence's obedient humble Servant, 
SYDNEY MORGAN. 

London, 
26th December, 1 850. 



POSTSCRIPT. 



January 12th 1851. 

Among a shower of newspapers and periodicals 
which at this moment fall around me (and I am 
grateful for the attention that has been given, and 
the indulgence that has been shown, to a rapidly- 
written pamphlet, devoted to an humble defence 
against unmerited accusations,) some have suggested 
possible liabilities, to future animadversions; and the 
demand for a second edition of the foregoing pages, 
before I suspected that half the first could have 



40 



been disposed of, permits me, in an hurried Post- 
script, to reply to those kind critics, who have politely 
" hinted a fault," or hesitated a doubt, as to the 
authenticity of an anecdote, which excited no par- 
ticular attention at the time it was first published, 
and which left no record of the fact — no proces 
verbal dress e, to call for inquiry, or to const at er, the 
truth or falsehood, of the narration. 

With respect to these suggestions, I confess such 
things could not 

" Pass o'er us like a summer cloud, 
Without our special wonder," 

in this hour of Papal resumption, and Romanism, 
" a la mode," — when a thousand reams are ready to 
start from the bandages of the Excise Office, for the 
protection of a relic, and a thousand pens rush to 
their inkstands to justify a tradition ; and when the 
Papal Power — reseated on its own throne (accorded 
to it, if not by St. Peter, at least by Constantine the 
Great*) — puts forth its long paralysed arm, to dis- 
pose of other " thrones, dominions, princedoms, virtues, 
powers" as in the time of the Gregories and Alex- 
anders ; — in such times, such an event as the uncover- 
ing the chair in the Basilica of the Vatican, might 
well cause a sensation, at least among the young 
sucking fathers of the semi-Papal Church of Puseyism. 

* There are no lines of Dante so often recited by the modern 
Italians as his famous apostrophe to the Emperor Constantine : — 
" Ahi ! Constantine, de quanto mal fu matre, 
Non la tua conversion, ma quella dote 
Che da te prese il primo ricco Patro." 



41 



But all historical discrepancies may be reconciled De- 
reference to the circumstances of the times to which 
they relate. 

When the Baron Denon and his learned colleague 
left for a moment the spolia optime of the Palace 
of the Vatican, to enjoy a little antiquarian lark, — 
of which the chair of St. Peter was the object,— 
the destinies of society (shaken in those volcanic times 
to its centre) were dependent on other views, and 
other results, than ever before, or since, occupied the 
mind of man, "There were giants in those days;" 
and though, like other giants, they fell when their 
agency was over, — still they fell not, before they 
had done their work; — and having <c exhausted old 
worlds," had opened the way and cleared the atmos- 
phere for the world as it now stands ! protected in 
its integrity by science, enlightened by knowledge, 
enamoured of peace, ambitious of order, and largely 
and finely organized for the development of all those 
sympathies, (hitherto the dream, only, of moral and 
social philosophy,) by which the universal condition 
of mankind is to be blessed and bettered. 

At the close of the eighteenth century, the armies 
of France, who had hymned their national chorus in 
their march over the Alps, conquered Romagna, 
passed the Rubicon, and entered the Porta Popula 
of Rome, to parade in the Champs de Mars of the 
Caesars, resembled in nothing the barbarian Gauls, 
so sternly received by the Conscript Fathers in an- 
tique times ; nor even the Germans, who, more 
recently, under the arch - traitor, the Constable de 

E 



42 



Bourbon, desecrated the shrines of St. Peter's, even 
in the great conservative age of " La Rennaissance " 
itself. 

The French armies had already made an edu- 
cation of circumstances. They had halted to ap- 
plaud with loud vivats the Pyramids in the plains of 
Egypt, where they were poetically told that " Forty 
Centuries looked down upon them;" and they ap- 
proached the glorious monuments of modern Rome 
with a respectful admiration, which amounted to 
reverential enthusiasm.* 

The testimonies of the Romans themselves did 
justice to the moderation of their French victors, and 
described the French soldiers buying white gloves to 
visit the galleries of the Vatican, while they trod with 
noiseless steps, " where sceptred angels held their resi- 
dence" 

The exquisite Loggie di Raffaello, with all their 
immortal works, were saved by General Murat from 
utter destruction, f The Halls of the Busts, and 
of the Muses — the Museums of the Chiramonte 
and Clementini — pavements of mosaic — roofs of 

* See " Latium," by Baron Bonsteittan. 

•f " When Murat arrived in Rome with his army, his first visit 
was to the Loggie of Raphael; and perceiving how much the 
paintings were injured, by being exposed for ages to the action of 
the air and inclemency of the weather, (for, like Italian loggie, 
these were open colonnades,) he ordered the whole side which was 
open to be framed and sashed with handsome windows. This 
work was completed in fourteen days; and had it not been done 
during his occupation, it is probable it would never have been 
finished." — Italy, vol. ii., p. 205. 



43 



cobalt and gold — columns of porphyry and alabas- 
ter — vases of lapis lazuli and Parian marble — the 
Laocoon — the Torso — the Apollo Belvedere, and 
objects equally sublime and beautiful, were viewed, 
but untouched, by the French troops, in silent ad- 
miration ; and when these glorious works of art 
and genius, which might have been carried away 
as the spoils of conquest, were peaceably ceded by 
Pope Pius the Sixth (at the Treaty of Tolentino), 
a Commission of Fine Arts was instituted to superin- 
tend their removal, protected — by the Pope himself! 
^He did more; for in order to reconcile the Romans 
to their loss, he not only employed the eloquent and 
celebrated preacher Monsignore Tenai, of the Con- 
gregation of the Mission, to preach them into resigna- 
tion, and erected stations in the streets for the pur- 
pose, — but while the Apollo was packing up, occupied 
their attention by preaching himself, declaring that 
St. Paul commended the breaking of statues, and 
Con stan tine had ordered their public sale as a mark 
of his contempt; that it was the Cross and the Virgin, 
not Gods and Goddesses, that should engross the 
attention of true Christians ; and that it was not the 
shrines of their Saints, but the statues of the Capitol, 
which brought heretics to their holy city, and their 
bad example among the elect of St. Peter. The Pope 
preached, — the people listened; and the statues were 
permitted to depart with as little sensation as they 
were seen to return."* 

Under such great and anxious surveillance, the 
* Italy, vol ii., p. 263. 



44 



circumstance of the discovery of the " ricketty " Chair 
of St. Peter might have been well overlooked ; and 
the act of removing the Apollo of Belvedere, from 
the pedestal where Michael Angelo had placed it, — 
the taking down the Capi d'Opere of RafFaelle, of 
Dominicheno, of Guido, and of all the great masters 
of the master age of art, to place them in their tra- 
velling sarcophagii, en route for Paris, may be a suffi- 
cient plea for the anecdote of the old chair being 
reserved for future and quieter days, to be " raconte " 
for the amusement of a Parisian salon, or inserted 
in some gossiping page, such as that to which it has 
found its way. 

Thus guarded, and thus consigned, departed those 
glorious trophies — 

" Inimitable on earth, 
By model, or by shading pencil drawn;" 

and if the chair bestowed by the Senator Pudens on 
St. Peter, or the statue of the Prince-Apostle (late 
Jupiter Capitolinus), accompanied the immortal cargo, 
does not appear on the inventories I have seen, — or if 
they once did on others, they were soon forgotten. 
But the greatest consignment — the type of the highest 
power, human or divine, ascribed to man — soon fol- 
lowed, — the Pope himself ! taken captive by Berthier. 
Pius the Sixth was speedily conveyed to France, — 
where the Baron Denon, as an accomplished Italian 
scholar, (and, in the reign of Louis XVI., Charge d' Af- 
faires at Naples and other Italian States,) was appointed 
by the First Consul to wait on, and accompany his 
Holiness, as his Chevalier d'Honneur and Cicerone. 



45 



Pope Pius the Sixth died at Valence, — and was 
succeeded in his captivity in France, by Pope Pius the 
Seventh. While residing at Venice, the Bishop of 
Chieramonte had been elected to the Papacy by 
the Conclave, and carried off by the French to Gre- 
noble ; from whence he proceeded to Paris, to take 
up his residence, a prisoner -guest, at Fontainbleau. 
Monsieur Denon was again selected to instruct and 
amuse the illustrious exile ; but in either of these 
honourable positions, to have made any allusion to the 
Chair of St. Peter, would have been discourteous and 
mat a pi*opos. Denon was, indeed, so delicate on such 
points, that he refused his great work on Egypt, to 
Pope Pius the Sixth, because he had proved in it 
that the world was 6000 years older than the age 
assigned to it by the Church. Pressed hardly by the 
Pontiff to explain his refusal, he confessed the truth. 
The Pope answered, smilingly, " A chaqu'un son 
metier, a moi, le mien ! " 

Pope Pius the Sixth was wont to prophesy, that 
he would be the last Roman Pontiff ; and his predic- 
tion seemed nearly accomplished, while Buonaparte 
hesitated in his sagacious policy, (for all conquerors 
or usurpers are cautious of disturbing popular reli- 
gions), whether he would not abolish the Papal Power 
altogether. This hesitation saved it for the time ; 
and the Battle of Waterloo finally prevented the 
accomplishment of the not " Infallible " Prophet 
himself. The Allied Preax of the nineteenth cen- 
tury assisted to right the boat of the fisherman (" il 
navacello del piscatore"); and the Popes of Rome, 



46 



once more ascended the throne of the Vatican, 
though they never trusted their sacred persons to 
the ricketty chair of its Basilica, which still remains 
covered, in its bronze etui, as in the time of Alex- 
ander the Sixth. 

The "return to order/' throughout Europe, in 
1815, restored the most precious of all the spoils of 
conquest taken in the Italian wars. Saints returned 
to their shrines, gods resumed their pedestals, and 
the glorious testimonies of the genius of man, in all 
ages, w 7 ere assigned once more to their old stations in 
Rome. There may they long remain, in all their 
original beauty! if not for the original purposes for 
which they were designed. May they never again 
be exposed to the ravages of 

" Contumelious, beastly, mad-brained war!" 

May Rome itself still continue the great studio of 
high Art — the cabinet of Antiquarian Science, — where 
modern genius may study from such perfect models 
as the world may not again produce ! May all that 
is ennobling in the history of the Mistress of the 
World, her liberties and her patriotism, remain an 
indelible impression to future generations ! And 
may even those lingering fragments — those dried 
specimens of a power, no longer available, as in 
their former omnipotence, to crush the interests of 
society, — may they too be regarded, while they last, 
with toleration and respect! until, haply, some crys- 
tal shrine arise (the triumph of future mechanic art) 
to preserve the whole mighty relic from the ravages 



47 



of time and the elements ! — for Rome, so preserved, 
would be to ages yet unborn the most precious 
monument which modern science could bequeath 
to posterity, for its benefit and amusement — its 
warning and example. 

I now hasten to meet another objection, — that the 
death of Monsieur Denon leaves me without the most 
efficient witness to authenticate the anecdote of " the 
Chair." The Baron Denon, and most of his learned 
colleagues, both in and out of the Institute, to whom 
the circumstances of the Italian wars were familiar, 
were living when my work on Italy was published. 
Not one denied the facts which I stated, — though 
many opinions, which time has justified, were severely 
criticised by such European Reviewers as then wrote 
in the spirit of the Holy Alliance of those days. The 
Remarks of Dr. Wiseman in 1833 form the only ex- 
ception to this assertion. On our return from Italy 
to Paris, we passed some few weeks there, chiefly to 
enjoy the society of General Lafayette, and the Baron 
Denon, with whom my husband and myself continued 
to correspond, till within a month of his sudden and 
lamented death. 

Some of his admirable letters, dated 1824, ap- 
peared, with his permission, in the "Book of the 
Boudoir," referable to the "Life and Times of Salvator 
Rosa;" and only two days back, in rummaging a vast 
coffer containing the correspondences of many years, 
almost the first letter I lighted on was one signed 
" Denon." It contains an allusion to his reiterated 
approbation of my work on Italy; — and if I now 



48 



reproduce it here — all flattering as it is — I do so less 
to gratify my own amour propre, than to satisfy any 
doubts which may linger in public opinion, as to the 
authenticity even of a trifling anecdote, with which 
his honoured and immortal name is connected, and 
which he would have induced me to erase, in future 
editions, by pointing out the error. 

Chere et aimable Amie, 

Monsieur Tennant, qui part pour l'lrlande, veut 
bien se charger de cette lettre, qui au moins vous sera sure- 
ment remise, et par laquelle vous saurez que nous vous 
aimons, que nous vous desirons, que nous nous occupons de 

vous, et en parlons to us les jours. Madame de H , qui 

est a la campagne 3 va etre jalouse de mon bonheur de vous 
avoir entretenu sans elle. Nous vous avons ecrit des lettres 
sous la meme enveloppe, mais je suis bien sur qu'elles auront 
en le sort des votres: peut-etre quelque jour me les rendra-t-ou 
en masse et nous en ferons un volume qui nous sera cher, et 
nous dedommagera de la privation. 

Qu'est ce que vous faites, chere amie ? Nous n'en savons 
rien du tout, et nous nous en inquietons dans votre interet 
comme dans la notre. Votre dernier ouvrage est to uj ours le 
plus beau: votre "Italie" a une force masculine, qui a con- 
served toute la grace de son origine. Je voudrais bien dans 
ce moment avoir votre riche facilite. Toutes les gravures de 
mon ouvrage sont faites. J'ecris mais cela ne m'amuse pas 
autant ; II est si difficile d'ecrire sur l'art, quand il ne faut se 
livrer qu ; a l'imagination des autres, et se garder de celle 
qu'on aimeroit a avoir. Voila ou je suis en ce moment : c'est 
vous cependant qui etes cause de tout cela ! Je voudrais bien 
en etre, a vous en avoir obligation, et n'avoir plus qu'a vous 
expedier les colossales volumes. 

Je desire bien vivement de quelque maniere que ce puisse 
etre, vous les remettre en main propre et vous remercier de 
les avoir fait. Si cela n'est pas encore fini, c'est encore votre 
faute : vous avez envoye FEurope dans mon cabinet, et il faut 



49 



bien que je sois la, a son secours pour vous justifier, de ce que 
vous avez dit de lui. 

Embrassez notre cher, cher Chevalier, mais pour moi tout 
seul : je ne pardonne la distraction qu'a lui. J'ai votre por- 
trait fort bien grave, que j'ai mis en bonne compagnie ; si 
vous en avez un du Chevalier, vous me ferez un grand plaisir 
de me l'envoyer. 

Je recois dans ce moment une epreuve d'une notice que 
je viens de faire pour un ouvrage de nos hommes illustres. Je 
vous l'envoye pour vous occuper de moi un moment de plus. 

Adieu, chere et aimable amie ; quand vous trouverez une 
occasion, ecrivez moi deux mots sans le contact de la poste • 
car ce moyen est de toute nullite entre nous. 

Permittez moi de vous embrasser de toute la tendresse de 
Pamitie la plus vraie, et la mieux sentie. 

DENON. 

Lady Morgan, 

Kildare Street, Dublin. 



WESTMINSTER : 
PRINTED BY W. BLANCHARD & SONS, 
62, MILLBANK STREET. 



i 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: April 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-21 1 1 



